Blogaround

A chinchilla. The Chinese word for chinchilla is 龙猫 [lóng māo] which literally translates to "dragon cat." I will be forever delighted by this. Image source.

1. Apocalyptic upbringing: how I recovered from my terrifying evangelical childhood (posted April 5) "In the evangelical Christian world of midwest America, it was normal for adults to tell children they would probably never grow old. The end could and would come any minute now."

2. Do we need to be saved like Saul of Tarsus was saved? (posted April 10) "Our sin + infinite debt = Jesus’ crucifixion OR our eternal torture in hell. None of the history matters. None of the nuances of language matter. All of the references to Jesus’ cross that don’t talk about it in terms of paying a sin debt can be cast aside and ignored."

3. The Disgusting Hypocrisy of the Anti-Trans Bathroom Movement (posted April 15) "However, when the issue becomes gun rights and not bathroom rights, this group switches sides dramatically."

4. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Lead (posted April 17)

5. What Everyone Is Missing about the Indiana Abortion Law (posted April 18) Oh god this is terrible.

6. Why I Hate Jesus (posted April 18) "Over the years, I have had a number of people write me about how the modern Jesus was ruining their marriage. In many instances, the married couple started out as believers, and somewhere along way, one of them stops believing. The still-believing spouse can’t or won’t understand why the other spouse no longer believes. They make it clear that Jesus is still very important to them and if forced to choose between their spouse and family, they would choose Jesus. Simply put, they love Jesus more than they love their families." Yeah I also hate this version of Jesus.

7. Boundary Setting vs Tone Policing (posted March 24) "There’s a difference between 'Please don’t speak to me that way' and 'You shouldn’t use that kind of angry language; nobody will listen to you that way.'" This is a really interesting article. I've always found tone-policing to be a tricky and complicated concept (and I'm not even sure I agree with feminists who call it out and talk about how tone-policing is bad)- definitely not as straightforward as feminists on the internet make it seem.

8. A Ritual for Renaming and Remembrance of Baptism (posted April 11) "Let's celebrate the changes in the lives of trans folks just like we celebrate new births, marriages, confirmations, graduations, retirement, and all other transitional moments!"

Have a good week, everyone!